Fri., Nov. 6, 2009 — Fri., Dec. 18, 2009Jon HaddockVintage Mouse Porn
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In his new series of works on paper, Tempe, AZ artist Jon Haddock employs a deceptively simple construct as a means to question attitudes about sexuality, pornography, and desire. Haddock has, in the past, often employed simple-seeming devices as conduits through which more intense notions can be considered, as when he has explored extremities of violence through both cartoon characters (drawings and sculptures) or casual, institutional violence through hand-made wooden folk art (in a brilliant work depicting the infamous "Don't tase me, bro!" incident). He has also explored the iconography of cinema and history through the reductive representation of seminal moments in mocked-up "screenshots." All of Haddock's works share a concision of expression and desire to suggest or express, as directly as possible, certain ideas about larger subjects. His realistic iterations of cartoon violence underscore both the harsh actuality of such moments, as well as their quixotic and seductive charm.
In his most recent work, Haddock sets up a methodology that is almost perverse in its overt charm, utilizing earthy 20th century b&w cartoon mice as body-doubles in a series of pornographic vignettes. It is a simple gesture that accomplishes numerous things. By consciously creating the works within a visual style from a bygone era—long before the existence of the more current lexicon of milfs, gilfs, twinks, et al—he positions a potentially inflammatory subject in a more neutral space. These works do not aspire to address the more idiosyncratic tastes of the contemporary porn consumer, but direct one toward blunter questions about sex and desire. His use of older cartoon animals evades reference to the pornographic subculture in which Disney characters, The Simpsons, and every other contemporary cartoon engages in unbridled acts of lust. Rendered in shades of gray, Haddock's mouse porn manages, on the one hand, to employ anthropomorphism to great effect in an honest deconstruction of the subject of sexuality while, on the other hand, creating works that are, if anything, far more tawdry than one would imagine.
Jon Haddock was born in Sacramento, California in December of 1960. He received his BFA in Drawing from Arizona State in 1986, and his MFA in Painting from the University of Iowa in 1991. In 2001 his work was included in the Bitstreams show at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Since then he has exhibited in North America and Europe at multiple venues, including ZKM Karlsue, the Yerba Buena Art Center, and PaceWildenstein. His work is included in several collections, including the Whitney, and Western Bridge, Seattle. He currently lives in Tempe, Arizona, where he is an instructor of Intermedia at Arizona State University.
Images of his work are available at whitelead.com.
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